The Kingdom Round the Corner

running slower and slower, glancing back across her shoulder and trying to catch their atte

Prentys?" Terry aske

ss; but you've not t

orry, Prentys. It's Lord Taborley's fault. He didn't tell eith

o

years ago, he had known quite definitely. Each time that he had had a glimpse of her on those brief leaves from the Front, he had been more and more sure of the desired direction. Her letters coming up to h

htfully with the frown of his problem in his eyes. What change had come over her? Or was it he who was altered? She had seemed so absolutely his while the terror

n paper. Once and only once had marriage been mentioned-on the night that he had set out for the first time for the Front. "

little Terry,"

must," she had ple

promised. "But I won't marry you till

n the moment you're free and w

forewarning. Through the gloom of streets and the blur of the accompanying crowd, he had seen her face loom up. Her arm had slipped through his; she had marched beside him like any Tommy's sweetheart. She had been seven

ondence and in his vivid imagination. And now, after so much hoping, she had become again a reality. He had been prepared for strangeness, but not for-- Was it her youth, which was to have flung

he requirements of the moment. "What are my plans, you asked? I haven't any. I'm a ma

, bu

t every one has to live somewhere. I

Prentys to dri

throwing his weight more heavily against the c

ing to be beastly. If I hadn't read it, I shouldn

ber that it rem

to see whether she had been listening. "I don't forget easily.

elle

at dir

no diff

led and gathered speed, shooting through the traffic w

ined for conversation. He lolled back with his eyes h

m so badly that she had been brave enough to ask for him. She was to have been precisely and in every d

ed. He would win his kingdom round the corner, even though it proved to be a different kingdom from the one he had expected. Terry couldn't have stayed seventeen always, which was the miracle he had demanded. She was a woman. He would have to teach he